1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a host device having a merged plug-in function and a method of generating a merged plug-in. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to a host device having a merged plug-in function and a method of generating a merged plug-in, which may process a plurality of jobs using the merged plug-in formed by merging respective jobs to process a plurality of plug-ins into the merged plug-in.
2. Description of the Related Art
A system using an image formation device and a web server is one in which a plurality of host devices share a plurality of image formation devices through a network. With the development of communication technology, the interest in document transmission systems has rapidly increased.
In a conventional system, a user either accesses a web server and manages the image formation device or manages the image formation device through a separate program installed at a host device. That is, the user requests jobs supported by the system using a web server or a host device with a separate program. For example, a job supported by the system includes a ‘Scan to e-mail’ job. The ‘Scan to e-mail’ job includes a function that scans a document positioned at the image formation device, converts the scanned data into a form suitable to be transmitted to an e-mail address of a recipient and transmits the converted data to the recipient. In order to request such a job, a user must set the ‘Scan to e-mail’ function through at least three steps, namely, ‘scanning step→conversion step→e-mail address setting step of a recipient using a management program.
Therefore, in a method of requesting a series of jobs using the conventional system, it is necessary for the user to repeatedly select and to designate sequential steps with respect to jobs requiring a plurality of steps. Thus, when an often repeated job is used by a user that includes a plurality of steps, the user is inconvenienced by having to repeatedly select and designate the sequential steps. So, for example, when the user often uses the ‘Scan to e-mail’ function, the user is inconvenienced by having to repeatedly set at least the three steps noted above. This leads to user inconvenience.